While staying with Italian friends in Piedmont recently I offered to bake an “English Cake” for them. I knew that both husband and wife were good cooks and had been feeding me really well all week. The husband, in fact, had run his own restaurant. No pressure then? Well, there wasn’t until I discovered that my recipe called for self raising flour, but this didn’t seem to exist in that part of Italy. My next thought was to use baking powder. No, despite visiting five supermarkets, I couldn’t find any. I did manage to buy what I hoped was bicarbonate of Soda.

So this is as much about being adaptable as it is about baking. Read on and see what happened. It’s a story with a happy ending, I promise.

Makes: A fairly large cake (About 12 slices)

Level: It was a little challenging because of the circumstances, but normally it’s quite easy.

Time: 30 – 35 minutes “hands on” then 40 – 45 minutes baking. Cutting, filling and decorating takes about 30 minutes.

Need: The original recipe called for 2 x 20cm/8” tins. My hosts only had a single 23cm/9” tin. I wanted to make a sweet mascarpone filling, so I used the large tin which had fairly high sides to make a deeper cake. I sliced it horizontally when it had cooled.

Ingredients from the original recipe

1 Tbsp instant coffee
1 Tbsp hot water
175g self-raising flour
1½tsp baking powder
175g caster sugar
175g soft butter or margarine
3 large eggs
75g walnuts, finely chopped + some halves to decorate

What I actually used for the cake

175g soft butter
3 large eggs (SEPARATED)
175g strong flour (it’s what was available; normally I would use a less strong flour)
1 tsp of what I think was bicarb-soda
175g sugar
100g walnuts, finely chopped + some halves to decorate
A “splash” of “proper” coffee (Well, I was in Italy!)

Filling/Topping

About 400g mascarpone
About 200g very fine sugar (like icing sugar)
A little more coffee
Some walnut halves or nice looking pieces (I used 12 around the cake and 1 in the middle – 3 or 5 would have been better.

Method

The original recipe used the “all in one” method, but I had to change that slightly because I planned to whisk the egg whites and fold them in. This seemed the best way to achieve a light cake in the circumstances.

Pre: I bought walnuts from the local market. They were still in their shells so needed to be shelled. When I did that I was quite disappointed at how bland their flavour was. To improve the flavour I roasted them in a dry frying pan for about five minutes. You can do the same job using an oven. Either way, watch them carefully or you’ll have burnt nuts (and no-one wants that, do they?)

1. Butter and line inside the tin (bottom and side) with baking parchment*. Turn the oven on to reach 200°C / 180°C fan / 400°F. Separate the eggs and set aside.

* The tin that I had to use was not spring form, nor did it have a loose bottom. I cut a long strip of baking parchment and folded it over lengthways and placed it in the tin before adding the other parchment. This gave me something with which to lift the cake out if I needed to.

2. In a large bowl, mix and beat together all the cake ingredients except the egg whites, walnuts and coffee.

3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peak stage. Stir about a quarter into the main mixture to loosen it, then fold in the rest gently to maintain the air. Stir in the walnuts and then the coffee a little at a time, tasting as you go.

4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Check by inserting a skewer or cocktail stick into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean and reasonably dry, the cake has baked. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool fully.

5. For the filling and topping beat the mascarpone to loosen it then sift in enough icing sugar to achieve the level of sweetness that you want. Stir in a little coffee and taste it. Take care not to put in so much that the filling becomes runny.

6. Cut the cooled cake in half horizontally and use about two thirds of the filling to join the cake halves. Use the remaining third to cover the cake then decorate with walnut halves.

Finally. I promised a happy ending didn’t I? Well, the cake had a very good flavour and the texture was reasonable, despite having to use strong flour and dubious raising agents. And it all got eaten.